Hewlett-Packard to Sell First Chromebook Laptop Using Google

Hewlett-Packard will start selling its first Chromebook laptop, entering the market for low-priced portable computers running an operating system from Google Inc. that emphasizes working on the Web. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Hewlett-Packard Co. will start
selling its first Chromebook laptop, entering the market for
low-priced portable computers running an operating system from
Google Inc. that emphasizes working on the Web.

The HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook has a 14-inch screen, 16-gigabyte solid-state drive and Intel Corp. processor. It also
comes with 100 gigabytes of free storage on the online Google
Drive service for two years, which ordinarily costs about $120.
The laptop goes on sale today in the U.S., with a starting price
of about $330, the company said in a statement.

Chromebooks, also sold by companies such as Samsung
Electronics Co. and Acer Inc., run Google’s Chrome operating
system -- software that emphasizes Web browsing, video and
Google’s online software for word processing and other tasks.
Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest personal computer maker,
will highlight its device’s bigger screen size compared with
competing models, said David Conrad, the company’s consumer
notebook director.

Hewlett-Packard, based in Palo Alto, California, is
grappling with a shrinking market for PCs, which generated 28
percent of its fiscal fourth quarter sales. Executive Vice
President Todd Bradley said last month that sales of Windows 8,
the latest version of Microsoft Corp.’s flagship operating
system, had been disappointing since its Oct. 26 debut.

Hewlett-Packard slipped 1.7 percent to $16.18 at the close
in New York, leaving the shares down 44 percent over the past
year.